i) Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image forming apparatus which records an image on a recording material being transferred.
ii) Description of the Related Art
In an image forming apparatus, such as an ink jet printer, which records an image on a recording material being transferred, techniques have been conventionally known in connection with correcting a transfer amount of the recoding material to record the image on the recording material with high precision.
Since many of serial ink jet printers repeat a record operation in a predetermined banding width and a transfer operation of paper in turn for printing, a difference between the predetermined banding width and the transfer amount of paper may cause deterioration in image quality such as gaps or overlaps between bands in the image. The above techniques have been developed to avoid such deterioration in image quality.
For example, the Unexamined Patent Publication No. 5-96796 discloses a technique of correcting the transfer amount of the recording material according to a correction value obtained by a calculation based on a test pattern image sample read by a scanner and recorded on the recording material.
Similarly, the Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-85242 discloses a technique of transferring the recording material under an optimal transfer condition obtained from a calculation based on a predetermined pattern image read by a scanner portion and recorded on the recording material.
However, both of the aforementioned disclosures require a scanning function for reading a test pattern image. Therefore, there is a problem that a user cannot see whether the recording material is properly transferred in a printer without a scanning function.